’Always more’ is a wrong idea – Degrowth workshop in Budapest

It was a rainy day in Budapest, and I was standing in front of an old building on the embankment of the Danube where I was told a workshop on ‘degrowth’ is being held. The address was right, so I locked my bike in front of the seemingly empty house. While I was looking for anything that would indicate that I’m at the right place, a girl showed up, pushed in the front door and disappeared in the dark. I followed her into the building. Next second I was standing in a deserted ex-gay club where a completely random interior design welcomed me with huge chandeliers, an unused Jacuzzi, graffitis of octopuses, dusty tables and an empty bar. A guy was sitting in the dark and told me to climb up to the 4th floor. Entering the 4th floor I found myself in a big and half-lit hall, with a ceiling covered with feather and colorful flags hanging from everywhere.

As I learned later, the place used to be a home of some heated nights of a marginalized community and also to some wealthy companies who choose to rent it for secret parties.

That day, when I was standing there with a completely surprised look on my face, some 40-50 people were discussing big ideas on how the world could be a better place. ’A world of limits’ – as they said. The open-discussion of the two-day regional Degrowth workshop in Budapest was about to start. I grabbed some organic salad, ran in to some friends and placed myself in a sofa right next to the huge windows over-looking the Danube and the Gellért Hill. The unexpected setting was a perfect to imagine a different kind of living.

What is degrowth?

I’ve been aware of the degrowth movement and its ideas for a while. But seeing people from about 20 different countries sharing the same idea and their common willingness to change for a better was uplifting.

At a first glimpse the idea behind the degrowth movement seems like a classical anti-capitalistic approach to the market system that we all know for a long time. But the advocates of degrowth don’t seem to be fulfilled with being just ‘anti’. They speak for getting back the humanist aspect of human societies that we’ve just lost in the tread wheel of the market system, consumerism and production.

‘Always more is a false idea. Human society is much more complicated.’

– said Vincent Liegey, organizer of the workshop in a thought-provoking talk as a motto for the degrowth movement which seeks for alternative ways of living instead of inequality, domination, competition, stress, disconnection and violence that rule our world.

According to Liegey we should reevaluate economic growth, production, development and the meanings of all this in order to reach beyond what we are now able to imagine as possibilities in life.

‘We should rethink what we consider a meaningful life, and how we imagine an ideal society’ – Liegey said. We should search for connections, dialogues, and ways to slow down, he added.

The degrowth movement agrees on the statement that infinite growth is unsustainable in a limited world. That idea was explained more scientifically by Miklos Antal PhD who gave a talk on the physical limits of growth.

‘While we still have resources to exploit it doesn’t mean we will not reach some limits’

– Antal said warning his audience on the effects of exploitation of fossil fuels on nature.

His example of the effects of climate change on societies and global politics made it clear, that we can’t responsibly feel free to use everything as fast as we do now.

Miklós Antal @ TEDxDanubia 2014

In Antal’s opinion, we are on a wrong track and the political system is defending consumerism so hard that we can’t even imagine a different way of living. But change is possible, he said. Antal came up with an example from the communism, when nobody could believe it can be ended, but then it happened.

What can we do?

While the exit door from the market system is not easy to find, there are several measures a regular person can fit in his daily life. The two-day workshop featured visits to projects that are based on sustainable behavior, such as a farmer’s market in Szimpla kert, a popular ruin pub between tourists. The workshop’s attendees also visited Cyclonomia, a DIY bicycle-builder community and low-tech center.

It is not easy to start growing plants on your balcony, but it is possible to find solutions that can reconnect you to others, the nature and the true spirit of communities – that’s how I’d sum up the event’s message. And hopefully we will see an ever-growing community around the idea of degrowth in Hungary.